Experts say plan to ban sugary drinks may be fizzer

Associate Professor Wayne Cutfield (left) and Dr Paul Hofman. Picture / Kenny Rodger

New Zealand's plan to ban sugar-laden soft drinks from schools to help control the obesity epidemic may be a wasted effort, say two specialists.

The Government and some public health groups are pushing the idea.

But Associate Professor Wayne Cutfield and Dr Paul Hofman, diabetes physicians at the Starship and Auckland University, say the idea is misguided and based on weak obesity evidence, although they accept it may reduce tooth decay.

Professor Cutfield said the fizzy drinks had been put on trial.

"We want to be absolutely convinced that they are guilty of appreciably contributing to the obesity epidemic. I think the data is too tenuous.

"More data may turn out to be more convincing, but until they are shown to be guilty I don't think you can justify executing them."

One in 10 children and one in five adults are obese and the problem is worsening. Obesity is linked to many disorders, including heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes.

Health Minister Pete Hodgson wants the soft drinks gone from all schools by 2008. He praises the Waitemata District Health Board scheme -it won a Health Innovation Award this week - in which half the area's high schools have withdrawn the drinks.

He maintains that reducing obesity could save 1500 to 3000 lives by 2011.

The Government plans to spend an extra $76 million over the next four years fighting obesity.

Groups such as the Obesity Action Coalition want high-sugar and high-fat foods banned from sale in schools. Fight the Obesity Epidemic goes further, asking for fat and sugar taxes to price these products off shop shelves.

Professor Cutfield said these were common-sense ideas but they were draconian and the published evidence was insufficient to justify any of them.

"If we are going to introduce social legislation, it's got to be based on science and not just common sense because these are major intrusions into people's lives," he said.

He and Dr Hofman argue, contentiously, that the rate of obesity has increased not because we consume more energy - they say we don't - but because we are less active, with children driven to school instead of walking, and watching more TV.

They contend that if the body is deprived of one source of calories, soft drinks for instance, it tends to find another - and that children get little of their energy from sugary drinks.

Professor Cutfield cited three studies on sugary drink intake and bodyweight, one of which found no link and two, including a 2001 Lancet article on 11-year-olds, which showed what he said were only weak links.

He said the Lancet article showed "a very small weight gain" - 250g to 500g - in overweight children who for 19 months consumed the sugary drinks daily, and it found no link for those not overweight.

Based on that research, the potential for saving many NZ lives a year by switching to artificially sweetened soft drinks was estimated in a Medical Journal paper co-authored by an Auckland University researcher, Professor Rod Jackson.